Human Aggression and Violence: Causes, Manifestations and Consequences.
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According to Barlett and Anderson (2012), personality variables can be used as predictors of aggressive behavior. They argue that personality traits such as narcissism and impulsivity are related to aggressive behavior. They identify the big five personality factors as the principal model of personality. The big five personality traits are openness, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism. The socio-cognitive models of aggression suggest that personality traits influence behavior through their impact on aggressive cognition or aggressive emotions. The study tested the effect of the big five personality traits on aggressive behavior. Accordingly, the strongest personality trait predictor is agreeableness and is characterized trustfulness and cooperation. Conscientiousness is characterized by being dependable, reliable and orderly and is negatively related to aggressive behavior. Neuroticism is characterized by emotional instability and being easily upset and is positively related to aggressive behavior. Openness is characterized by being independent minded, intellectual and polished and is not related to aggressive behavior. Extraversion is characterized by being assertive, energetic and talkative and is related to aggressive behavior.
The big five personality traits can either inhibit or enhance access to aggressive emotions and
After viewing Origins of Human Aggression (The Nature of Things), I learned a lot about origins of human aggression. In the first part of the video, it focused on 2 year old children and how aggression is derived. The video states a study shows that signs of aggression start within the first couple months of a newborn’s life (Maher, Origins of Human Aggression (The Nature of Things). This study within the video I believe is accurate. I was told by my parents that as I grew I began to be more aggressive. The older I got, I began to do things such as: throw objects, hit people, and throw a tantrum if I could not get my way. One time I cried for an hour just so my mother would buy me a pair of shoes. Throwing that tantrum got me my way, but
Social Psychological Theories of Aggression Social learning theorists propose that behaviour, such as aggression is learnt through observation, imitation and behaviour shaping. This behaviour is learnt automatically through observation of male and female role models, for example parents, peers and media characters. Whether or not this behaviour is imitated depends on the type of reinforcement that the role model receives. Vicarious reinforcement involves the outcome of a role models behaviour, for example if a child observes a parent acting aggressively and receiving positive rewards for they are more like to be imitate this behaviour in the future, than they would be if the role model
What has America come to? Although the articles, “We’re No.1(1)!” written by Thomas Friedman, and the article “Violence is Who We Are,” by Steven Crichley, have different overall subjects, they have a similar arguments. The world isn’t as great as it used to be, we are lacking good leadership, and we happily invite wrong doings into our lives.
Aggression – ‘the export of violence’ – played a central role in the rise of the West. Military and naval superiority rather than better resources, greater moral rectitude, irresistible commercial acumen underpinned western expansion. This same aggression was on display during the American Civil War. Both the North and South were fighting for their version of democracy in the Civil War. Lincoln optimized this in his closing line of the Gettysburg Address, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Several battles for both sides added to the attrition efforts and almost achieved a decisive victory but fell short. America felt the effects of battles on the home front and the political twisting that came with a war threatening our own land and well-being at home in a manner that wouldn’t be felt again for another 136 years. Even in the labels placed by the opposing sides, The "War of Northern Aggression" and “The "War of Southern Aggression", conversely, the ideal of aggression throughout the war was evident. The American Civil War revolved around the idea of saving the democracy through a decisive battle and political victory that would attrite the other side into submission; these ideals are rooted in an aggressive military tradition.
amount of the violence. My children at times were abused for defending me. I knew
Aggression is a natural part of human behavior, and can even be adaptive in certain situations. However, when aggression manifests itself in violent behaviors, it becomes problematic. Patterns of aggression change throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, and these changes usually differ between males and females (Loeber, 1997). Physical aggression is typically greatest early in life and decreases during adolescence, whereas more serious violence tends to increase with age, particularly during adolescence (Loeber, 1997). Despite the changes that occur in aggressive tendencies throughout childhood and adolescence, aggression is seen as a very stable trait, almost as stable as
In a world that is continuously changing in every aspect of its existences, there has arrived a controversy involving prehistoric societies and modern societies. Some scholars believe that prehistoric societies were more violent than the present modern societies; whereas other scholars on the opposite side of the argument believe that today human beings are living in a far more violent society than those who preceded. The two sides of the ongoing debate have published several books and articles defending their standpoints. They both present very compelling evidence based on historical and recent data and use interdisciplinary fields in order to support their claims.
Since the beginning of time, in Genesis, Cain showed aggression toward his brother Able. Aggression takes many forms, because of jealousy, insecurity, anxiety, revenge, antisocial personality, alcohol, and drugs. Even though all individuals are uniquely different, they all experience frustrations, but for different reasons. For example, almost everyone becomes frustrated with a computer, some literally destroy the inept machine, but not everyone takes out their aggression on the equipment. Not all aggression is violent. Psychologically mature people generally have better self-control over their frustrations and do not let them escalate. Some people are immature or antisocial and are unable to handle the normal frustrations of everyday life. Many individuals who display antisocial behavior also tend to show no remorse after doing anything wrong like, Lizzy Borden in 1892 (Bible)(brainposts.blogspot.com).
There is additional research that has found callous-unemotional traits to be more common in those exhibiting comorbid typologies of both reactive and proactive aggression (Fanti, Frick, & Georgiou, 2009). They indicate such traits as being predictive of more complex antisocial behaviours, though when looking at the callous subscale, proactive aggression was exclusively strongly related to this trait (Fanti, Frick, & Georgiou, 2009). Literature has noted a large number of individuals who are involved in both typologies of reactive and proactive aggression and are therefore highly aggressive in nature (Frick & Marsee, 2006; Poulin & Boivin, 2000). It is important to note distinct behaviours within each typology and
Physical and relational aggression within relationships around the world is depressingly widespread. Many people will be quick to attribute this to the large spectrum of violence being shown on media to everyone. Research has shown that being exposed to physical or relational aggression from any form of media can possibly have an impact of one’s likelihood to engage in such behavior. However, these explorations rarely look at the subject in the context of romantic relationships. In this research paper, Coyne et al. (2011) explore this with a focus on emerging (young) adults. Thus, they “uniquely focus on the association between media depictions of aggression and enactment of aggressive behavior toward a spouse or romantic partner” (Coyne et al., 2011, p. 56). Other differences in this research include the fact they participant are young adults, not the usual children who are considered to be more vulnerable to exposure than adults, and that the term “media” is more broadly defined along with “intimate partner violence” not only including physical but also aggression in the form of verbal or emotional bullying (relational aggression, to be precise) as well. Coyne et al. (2011) hypothesized several things: that exposure in the media to physical violence would be closely associated with both forms of aggression (physical and relational) within romantic relationships, the same for exposure to relational aggression in the media, that women would show more correlation between
To help better understand the types of decisions being made in terms of aggression, the authors categorize employees into three sections: manifest aggressives, prosocials, latent aggressives, and overcompensating prosocials (page 724). Both latent aggressives and prosocials believe themselves to not be aggressive, but
Behaviourist, Biological, Psychodynamic, Cognitive and Humanistic perspectives are the deduction made after a depth study of the mental activity associated with the human behaviour. In this essay I will be comparing two psychological perspectives and their points of view in analysing aggressive behaviour.
Dr. Marcus began the course with a presentation of several well-known violent acts. This was an effective presentation of course content. We started the first class with the end result of a violent act. Then, spent the next few weeks examining the risk factors that led to the violent act. Another topic we discussed this semester was developmental risk factors that increase the probability of violent or aggressive behavior. From prior knowledge, I figured that the broader environment, particularly a negative/unsupportive environment, would influence aggression or violence in adolescents. However, I was surprised to learn that fixed dimensions such as gender and dynamic dimensions such as personality traits also had an influence. Another topic that I enjoyed learning this semester was situational risk factors that influence violent or aggressive acts. Some situational risk factors are frustration, or blocking of goal attainment and drugs & alcohol. Some situational risk factors interact with each
Aggression is behavior that can harm another person (Greitemeyer & Sagioglou, 2016; Kassin et al., 2017). The word “aggression” encompasses many meanings, including violence, verbal insults, and anger, among others. None of us are immune to aggression, and we all will experience it to some degree. However, the question we should ask ourselves is why some people show more aggression than others.
There are clearly no simple genetic or hormonal factors that can explain the variation in aggressive in males and females. Studies of human males suggest that there is at most a small genetic component to aggression, but a greater one for personality traits associated with such behavior. The biological mechanisms translating the message in the genes into antisocial or criminal behavior are not known. Therefore, there is clearly no simple aggressive gene effect. Many genes are likely to be involved, and each may have a weak effect on aggressive behavior. A direct genetic effect on aggression, for example, may determine how quickly an individual responds to aggravation. Aggression may also be influenced indirectly; for example, a man's size and strength may affect the way he behaves and how others react to him. (Turner, 253)